


Melody of a love language

by Menatiera



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Birthday Presents, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Multi, No Angst, Playing the Piano, Tony plays the piano, soft and warm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/pseuds/Menatiera
Summary: Sometimes Steve remembered it abruptly, while he watched Tony’s hands flying over a keyboard, other times Bucky brought it up when Tony wasn’t there, asking Steve if it really happened. The experience had that strange, ethereal quality that usually was significant to fairy tales rather than real events. And after they agreed that it was real, they stared at each other for long, lost in their thoughts. Bucky couldn’t tell what Steve was thinking, but he could picture all kinds of domestic images, filled with music.Or: Steve and Bucky find out that Tony can play the piano.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63
Collections: Stuckony Love Letters





	Melody of a love language

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Feles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feles/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Feles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feles/pseuds/Feles) in the [Stuckony_server_love_letters](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Stuckony_server_love_letters) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  1\. Tony playing the piano  
> I hope you like it, Feles! And if you don't mind it, I'd like to use this as TSB fill as well for my Maria Stark square :)
> 
> The fan edit picture in the moodboard (in the middle of bottom row) is made by SunshineAilin and I got permission to use it with credit. Thank you for that! :)

***

They spotted the piano while they were trekking back to the rendezvous point after a successful mission. It was in horrible shape - a tree had grown through it over the times, to name the most noticeable issue - and yet it somehow still had that ethereal grace that Steve always felt when it came to musical instruments. Maybe even more so.

Tony stepped closer to it. He could've flown out of the country, but he decided to stick with Steve and Bucky because he didn't want to leave his boyfriends alone even if the danger was eliminated already. At least they could spend some time together - it was a rare occurrence nowadays anyway.

He pushed one of the buttons. The piano made a sound - it wasn't in tune, even Steve could hear that without any musical education. Yet the _pling_ somehow resonated well with the tortured quality of the instrument, vibrating in the air a moment longer even as Tony let the button up.

"Hm," Tony said. His armor-gloves retracted themselves from his hands, and he pushed down a few more buttons.

And the music flew out of the piano. Not perfect, but it was a melody, recognizable.

Bucky and Steve met each others' eyes as they listened, up until Bucky started to laugh, and soon Steve followed, once he also recognized what Tony tried to play on that poor, banged-up piano.

It was the melody of the _Man With A Plan._

***

The memory of that night didn’t leave them. Sometimes Steve remembered it abruptly, while he watched Tony’s hands flying over a keyboard, other times Bucky brought it up when Tony wasn’t there, asking Steve if it really happened. The experience had that strange, ethereal quality that usually was significant to fairy tales rather than real events. And after they agreed that it was real, they stared at each other for long, lost in their thoughts. Bucky couldn’t tell what Steve was thinking, but he could picture all kinds of domestic images, filled with music.

***

“Look,” Bucky pointed forward. 

They were on vacation, sort of: after a mission, they decided not to head home immediately but to travel around Ireland for a few days. Listening to the locals, Steve’s old accent came forth with such rigor Tony was left in awe and Bucky reeling, but all of them had fun with it, making Steve do all the talk as they visited the sights. Tony and Bucky played on the public chessboard while Steve sketched the buildings around them and they ate ice-cream despite the cold weather. They even visited a beach where Steve and Bucky braved the freezing sea while Tony enjoyed the sight of his screaming boyfriends splashing water at each other from under a warm blanket.

What Bucky spotted in Galway, however, was a street piano.

Tony looked at his boyfriends and shook his head. “No way.”

“Tony, please,” Bucky said. Steve didn’t say anything, but he turned on the puppy eyes, and the puppy eyes always made Tony’s knees weak, and he was defenseless when it came to his boyfriends asking him to do a little favor for their happiness.

So Tony sighed, put his backpack down next to the piano, and sat down, cracked his fingers, and started to play.

Steve and Bucky listened, enchanted, enthralled. They didn’t know this melody - no wonder - but it was beautiful; soft and tender at the edges but strong and steady as steel in its core. It wrapped them up in comfortable, new-yet-familiar sounds, promising ease and rest, while under the layer of comfort, there was rebellion and determination and strength.

They didn’t know how Tony did it. It was, by all means, magical.

The people of Galway agreed as they gathered around Tony more and more, at a respectful distance, listening with breaths held. Some of them pulled their phones and recorded Tony playing. Not because he was Tony Stark, at least Bucky thought, because here in Europe people very rarely recognized Tony. They recorded because it was an artist giving them a beautiful gift. They recorded because Tony’s music was full of emotions, and they wanted to keep that, wanted to remember, wanted to take it out later, listen to it again and cherish it again.

Steve and Bucky committed the song to their memory and to their soul, swearing to remember that way, better than any recording could’ve done justice to their feelings.

And when Tony finished the melody, they stepped forward and pulled him to a hug, pulled him into kisses, unashamed of the audience and unaware of the applause and cheers.

***

It wasn’t a hard decision, what to get Tony for his birthday. Pepper helped them pick out the piano that would later become an essential part of their shared home, standing proudly in the middle of the living room, always ready for Tony to sit down to it and play. Play the songs that he’d written or ones he had learned from his mother. 

It took time for Tony to open up, to talk about what the piano, what playing it meant to him. How it made him feel connected to Maria Stark. How cathartic it was to take out the old, almost-forgotten compositions he’d written as a teen, and trying to play them again. How hard it was to face all that pain, all that rage, all that loneliness encapsulated in sounds.

Steve and Bucky were there for him, held him through tears, held him through laughs. Encouraged him, sometimes just by their presence, sometimes by words, and sometimes by asking Tony to play more, once more, once again. They listened, and they understood, and kissed the tears away, and replaced them with their own, coming from love instead of loss, coming from laughter instead of crying.

It became their love language, one of the many, at least; one that they understood and kept for themselves.


End file.
